John 20:1-18 (MSG) Resurrection!
20 1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”
3-10 Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
11-13 But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
13-14 “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
15 Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
16 Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
17 Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her.
Intro:
I don’t mean any disrespect but as folks start to die and die there flesh turns back to dust. And Yes Death Stinks! Most who witnessed Jesus’s crucifixion from a distance have departed. Mary, his mother, and Mary Magdalene are among those who remain.
But as the soldiers now go about the hard physical labor of un-crucifying a man, a Sadducee named Joseph of Arimathea steps forth. This wealthy member of the Sanhedrin and secret disciple of Jesus was one of the few dissenting voices during the illegal trial. Another of those voices was that of Nicodemus the Pharisee, who now stands atop Golgotha with Joseph. They have received permission from Pilate to take the body, as the governor wants to put this execution to rest as soon as possible.
Somewhat shockingly, Joseph and Nicodemus are publicly declaring their allegiance to the teachings of Jesus. Joseph takes Jesus’s body to his own private family tomb, a brand-new man-made cave carved out of the soft Jerusalem rock on a nearby hillside. The Jews believe that a criminal’s presence in a tomb desecrates it. Even worse, for a member of the Sanhedrin to touch a dead body on Passover makes him unclean and disqualifies him from eating the Seder. By the law Joseph Arimathea and Nicodemus will be declared impure by carrying his limp corpse down off Golgotha and then to the nearby tomb. There is no time to perform the ritual washing and anointing of the corpse with oil.
But they do make the extravagant gesture of coating the body in expensive myrrh and aloe, to overwhelm the coming smell of decomposition. Then they wrap the body tightly in linen, making sure to keep it loose around Jesus’s face in case he is not really dead but merely unconscious.
In this way, he will not suffocate. Jewish tradition dictates that all bodies be examined three days after apparent death. Thus the tomb will be reopened and Jesus will be observed on Sunday.
But all this is merely adherence to ritual. For Jesus is clearly dead. The spear rupturing the pericardial sac around his heart left no doubt. Nonetheless, the tomb will be reopened on Sunday.
When death is formally pronounced, his body will rest inside the tomb for a full year. Then the bones will be removed from his decomposed body and placed in a small stone jar known as an ossuary, to be either stored in a niche carved into the tomb wall or removed.
1) Jesus was never formally pronounced dead:
The Murdered Jesus, the Killed Jesus, they Nail him to The Cross and the Laid him in the tomb. But with all that they could not kill the Christ in Jesus. What are you saying Preacher, I am Saying that even if Jesus was not alive in the flesh in the spiritual sense he was still very much alive; not the Romans, not the Jews or the people had the power to kill the God in Jesus. You see we need to understand that even if you kill the Revolutionary that does not mean you kill the God that sent him.
That’s why Jesus like others didn’t rot in the tomb. That why there was no prof of the death of Jesus. Yes there was prof of the killing but I have come to understand that only God can pronounce and announce life and death and even thou someone closes their eyes, even thou someone heart might stop, even thou someone might be dead as far as we are concerned if God has something more for them to do all he has to do is call them like Jesus did Lazarus and they can get up, all God has to do is say little girl get up like he did with the Generals Daughter.
Now if he can do it with a friend of Jesus and he can do it with the ruler’s daughter why are some this morning still wondering if he could do it with his own son? And not only was Jesus still alive and in the hands of God the father he sent escorts to bring Jesus out of the tomb in style. In others words like Jesus said on “The Cross” the suffering was over, the poverty was over, the hunger and humiliation was over and finished.
2) Real Stink in below the surface
Look have you ever had something in your house are car to die, I mean something that you can see or find but the smell is there and you have to look for it to find it and when the smell is really bad it normally means something is Dead. There are some people like that they seem to look good on the outside but if you get to close they are stink. I have come to find out that there are some folks that even thou they don’t have a physical smell they have a nasty, stink personality and all they are really leading you to is death. Some folks bring live and some folks bring death and when you with God, and Jesus it a celebration of life, not death.
I mean I have come to realize I don’t have time for stinky people, I don’t have time for dirty people, I don’t have time for trashy people or people with bring down the atmosphere with anything less then what is pleasant to the nostrils of God.
3) Jesus Cleaned up his own Mess!
The morning is dark. Dawn will soon break over Jerusalem, marking the third day since Jesus’s death. Mary Magdalene now takes it upon herself to perform the traditional task of examining the dead body. She travels with another woman named Mary, though not the mother of Jesus.
Just as on the day the Nazarene was executed, the streets of the Upper City are quiet as the two women pass through. They exit the city walls at the Gennath Gate and now travel in the Nazarene’s last footsteps as they walk toward Golgotha.
The vertical pole on which Jesus was crucified still stands atop the hill, awaiting the next crucifixion. The two Marys look away from the gruesome image and walk around the hill to Jesus’s tomb.
They have practical matters on their minds.
Mary Magdalene has never forgotten the many kindnesses Jesus showed her during his lifetime. And just as she once anointed him with perfume and washed his feet with her tears, she now plans to anoint the body with spices.
But when she get there Church the Rock is rolled away and the tomb is empty and the burial clothes are folded up, put up. Jesus was finished being dead as a matter of fact Jesus was finished being human. While he that was with out sin had to put on sin his struggles, his suffering was over. The mess of life the poverty, the suffering, the slavery that was Jesus of Nazareth had been taken off and now Jesus of heaven Jesus of God, Jesus the Christ was in the place of the old self. I like the concept of Baptism that in baptism you wash away the old self and are reborn to the new self in Christ. But Church I just came by today this Sunrise service to tell you that that is Just what Jesus Did he cast off the servant Jesus in death on the cross and some time while in the grave instead of giving up the ghost and dying to the stick of this world he put on the power of God to live to have life eternal life and to be a blessing not a curse to be power not weakness. Can you smell it not the stench of Death but the sweet aroma of worship.
Let me Finnish by saying in the Old Testament On sixteen different occasions in the book of Leviticus, an “aroma” is mentioned as something pleasing to the Lord. Specifically, the aroma of a sacrifice is important to God.
The importance of a sacrifice’s aroma is not the smell but what the smell represents—thesubstitutionary atonementfor sin. The very first mention of God smelling the aroma of a burnt offering is found inGenesis 8:21. Noah offered a burnt offering of clean animals and birds after leaving the ark. In Leviticus, a pleasing aroma is mentioned in connection with the various offerings of Jewish tabernacle worship.Leviticus 1:9says, “The priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.” The “pleasing aroma” is also mentioned inLeviticus 1:9and13, emphasizing the action of propitiation rather than the actual smoke of the burnt offering. The New Testament reveals Christ as the final sacrifice for sin, the ultimate propitiation: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). Jesus, the Son of God, was the only One who could provide the eternally pleasing sacrifice.
So lastly I say Jesus Doesn’t Stink but produces an aroma that pleased God.
